When I started highschool, it was just about the worst experience of my life. However, there was one shining ray of light. I met my best friend, Heather. We were two miserable loosers, and about the only people in our english class who could read above a grade three level! For nine years we suffered through an adolescent on again, off again friendship. By the time we hit our twenties, we were like sisters. My parents had died, hers had taken me in. When I was too broke to eat, she'd stock my fridge and buy me my "girl stuff". When I was hysterical over smashing up my car, she babysat me. The only time she couldn't console me was when I lost her. Two years ago today, she left our hometown to follow her heart. Her boyfriend lived out west, and two days after her graduation (and the awsome party I threw her), she packed up and left me. It was probably the saddest day of my life. It was also a major turning point for me. I followed her. Just after Christmas in 1998, I headed west to join her. She was now living on her own, the relationship that had taken her away was scattered to the four winds. Once again we were two losers who only had each other. We lived together in a love-hate environment. Like real sisters. Unfortunately, living so far away from the place I grew up was a terrible strain on our lives. While she was adjusting fairly well out there, I was dying. After fifteen months, I threw in the towel. I came home to Montreal. I didn't cry to leave her that day. We both knew it was a matter of survival for me to go home, but now that I'm here, and it's summer, I miss her all over again. I miss our long drives going nowhere. I miss going to a kiddie park and playing on the swings. I miss blowing bubbles. I miss Heather. There is an empty place in my life, waiting for her to come home and fill it. Last night I couldn't sleep, I was crying too much. She should be here with me, going to street fairs, eating Ben and Jerry's ice cream at the Old Port, and hanging out at Frank's restaurant. She's not. She's 2000 miles away from me. So tell me, all of you out there in bug-eyed computer land, have you ever had a friend like Heather?

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

Answers

Once I had a friend named Wendy. We met in high school, and even though we had nothing in common, we became best friends. She eventually went to another school, but we still stayed in touch. I was there when her mother died. I remember what it did to her.

Fast forward to my college years. Wendy and I had a huge fight. I don't really remember what it was about, but we didn't talk for three years. then, on my 21st birthday, she sent me a card. I called her up and told her what was going on in my life. She told me what was happening in hers. Her father had died. I was sad that I couldn't be there for her. We got together for coffee, and from then on, our friendship has been stronger than ever before. She came with me out west, and became my roommate. Living together was rough, to put it nicely. But she was still my best friend, and the only sister I ever had. When she moved back home, I wasn't sad, because I knew how much she missed it. I was happy that one of us could go back.

Wendy, if we could survive living together, we can survive living apart.

Damn, you made me cry at work.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

Granted, I've never had an experience like that... but I do have a great best friend. For one thing, this girl is like super active, involved in alllllll these activities. But she still has always made time for me. I can call her any time, and she'll listen. She helped me during my little school animal rights campaign, and during my parents' separation. I also love this girl because I can have just as much fun sitting around talking with her as going out and doing something. She's like the older sister I've never had (two years older than I am). So yeah, I haven't had an experience like yours, but my friend Lydia is still a wonderful girl.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

Your story kind of sounds like the movie Beaches. I have never had a friend like that before. I hope I soon will get one.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

My friend Karey and I are like that. We've been best friends ever since I can remember. Through all the tough things we've always been there for each other. When I had the most devastating heartbreak of my life it was Karey who spent of all her free time pushing me to get back out there, she refused to let me drown myself in self pity. When I was so ill that I couldn't even gather the strength to care for myself, she was the one camping out at my apartment, doing my laundry, cooking for me, and bringing me orange sherbert in the middle of the night when I couldn't stop coughing.

By the same token I have been with her through a broken engagment. I was there for her when she was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. And I was there when her relationship with her mother became violent.

Yes we too lived together, and it's not easy.

We've been through a lot together, but most of our time together is fun. We're both in serious relationships now, and we spend less time together than we ever have.

The thing to remember Wendy, is that Heather is your best friend. From the lack of responses to your question you should see that few people have what the two of you have together. You love each other, and I think it's very rare for two women to have such a deep friendship. She'll always be there for you and vice versa. Unlike a man you could never lose her to another woman. You won't break up because of distance, and she still has the final veto power over any man you decide to date.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

My best friend Janine lives 800 miles away in Indiana. I moved away from her after two years of best friend-hood, when I was 11. We've managed to keep regularly in touch for the past 8 years, and have seen one another only three times in person during all this time. We have psychic bursts of mutual communication ("I just sent you a letter... you're kidding, I just sent YOU a letter!"). After 8 years, we have nothing in common. She's driven to succeed, a business major at Notre Dame destined for a career in the city and a future in the suburbs. She likes dogs more than cats. I'm laid-back, with a nice lib arts major hoping to be a teacher or work in publishing somewhere smallish and quiet. I like cats more than dogs (but only like 5% more). Her taste in music is ATROCIOUS and her favorite movie is Beaches. My taste is die cast in rock and roll and I love Arnold Schwarzenegger. But when it's midnight and you pick up on the first ring and you're both feeling the exact same thing despite these eons of differences, and you finish one another's sentences and hang up smiling, you know what it's like to have a friendship that transcends the menial and becomes forever :).

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2000

OK, how cheesy is this. I just called my best friend (I say best with a lot of latitude, I have MANY best friends, as does she, but this is the girl that KNOWS me, that knows my cats, that I can call at 12:00 at night and say, "I'm so ashamed, I just downloaded Vitamin C "Graduation Song", you need to come over and save me from myself." and she comes).

The cheesy part is, I did just call her, and she is on her way over, and she'll, for the first time, make her appearance on Pamie's forum. But before she does, I have a few things I want to say about her. She and I can always make each other laugh (oh damn, I thought I had more time. She just unlocked my door.) I guess I'm not gonna have time to say anything about her. Just know that it is out there, and in many different people, in many different wys and the things they'll make you laugh about are all all different things (as I'm typing this, she says, "I watched survivor tonight." To which I, who just downloaded Graduation Song, responded, "OOOOHHHH... no". And did she stop there? No, she says, "And it was so good. I thought they were finally gonna kick off that prissy little litiagation lawyer." So I'm stopping, to let her finally let her at least say "hi" on this page I've got her hooked on, before she says anything else clever and funny that I absolutely must share.

Gretchen starts here- Hi Pamie! I don't feel very clever tonight, so I'll just be shy! But, since I must say one thing about this darling, drunk on wine tonight, friend of mine, it is this: I adore her so much that I seriously thought of trying to marry her off to my brother so that we can always have the friendship we have now. And THAT says a lot about her and our friendship, because as far as I'm concerned, there aren't many people out there good enough for my brother!

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2000

I used to have a friend like that. We met in drama class at college, and for 9 years, although we lived a time zone apart, we could always count on each other. Her father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer; my mother entered end-stage COPD at the same time. We supported each other in our problems and in our weird-ass obsessions (you leave Dallas, I'll leave Boston and we'll meet in San Diego to see Robert Sean Leonard in King Lear? Excellent!) She's really the only person I thought really got me. I never worried that she'd think I was insane, because we both were. She was pretty much one of the 2 people in the world I really trusted. And then, for really no reason that I know, she decided not to know me any more. Literally. I went to England for three months. The night before I left, we talked, and she was going to fly over and we'd go to Dublin on the long weekend I thought was coming right up. When I got there, I realized that the long weekend was actually in August, called and left a message for her saying we could still go, but it might not be great timing, and I never heard from her again. Despite letters, phone calls and the coolest little handmade postcard featuring our mutual lust-object John Cusack - she never called, never wrote back, never told me what I had said or done to warrant that reaction. Best friend for nine years. So now I'm down to one person I trust, and really I just say that cause I know how paranoid it would be to trust no one.

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2000

I had this particular friend since we were 2 years old (26 years). We were inseperable. In 1997 she decided to move in with a guy in San Antonio (1200 miles away). We still talked on the phone every weekend but I never saw her after she left. Last year my mom "fell in love" with a con man. My mom and this guy went to Texas to visit her and this con man talked her into believing I was pure evil. It was a huge huge mess. After this con man killed my mom, my friend called and asked me to forgive her...I said "I don't think so". It was a miserable end to a wonderful relationship. I can say I don't trust anyone completely anymore.

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2000

My oldest and dearest friend in the universe is Jenn. We've known each other since we were 15, have been through a number of rough times, and still love each other dearly. She lives in Tucson now, married to a great guy and expecting their first baby. While I'm still a little sad that we don't live close to each other anymore, I know how much she loves Tucson, which makes me happy.

Here's a whole journal entry devoted to her.

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2000

My friend is Katrina. This year marks our 20th anniversary of being best friends. At this point, I don't really think that friend really describes our relationship, she is truly my sister. We have been through everything together and whether we see each other every day or once a month, I just know that she is there for me no matter what. Just like I am for her.

She is the only person that I have in my life that can read me before I have even gotten one sentence out. She is also the only person I can have a complete and wonderful conversation with that is so full of half sentences and half ideas/concepts that no one but one of us could understand it.

I know that I am incredibly, extremely lucky to have a friend like her, and now the whole world knows how lucky I am too.

-- Anonymous, June 17, 2000

Oh, Wendy, have I ever. When I was younger, I was insanely, teenybopperish crazy about a certain television show which I will not name. Okay, yeah, I will, because that program brought one of the most important people in my life into my life. So, all right. It was the Mickey Mouse Club. The one with JC and Justin from *NSYNC. Anyhow, I knew no one else who liked it, but one day I was flipping through this magazine and I saw an ad a girl had placed that she was starting a fan club for the show (Yes, I was that crazy about it) and I just had a feeling, y'know? So I wrote her a letter. Within a week, she wrote me back. It was insane all the things we had in common. She once said we're more like one person than two and I totally agree. We finish each other's sentences, we have the same hopes and dreams, we even look alike. We're as close to being twins as two people who weren't born to the same mother can be. Anyhow, we became pen pals, then phone friends, then we met and became best friends. A bunch of people said that the friendship would end as soon as MMC did, but it's lasted six years after that and I can't imagine life without her now. She understands me better than anyone in the world and she has the ability to make me feel better when no one else does. The point of all this is, I live in South Carolina and she lives in Michigan and in all the time we've been friends, I've only actually spent about a month and a half in the same place with her but our friendship still thrives and flourishes and grows through phone calls and letters and e-mails and late night IM- athons. The distance truly does not matter.

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2000

Wendy and Heather, let me tell you something...HANG ON TO A CLOSE FRIENDSHIP BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN IT WILL BE RIPPED COMPLETELY FROM YOU. In 1991 I was working at this place (which I will leave unnamed, mainly because I had to wear my name on my shirt, ugh) and in walks this girl who was looking for a job and who was really pretty. (IDENTICAL to Demi Moore) Prettier than myself I thought and decided I would throw her application away when she left. I got busted and my boss saw her and knew she had filled out the app. and asked where it was. I dug it out of the trash, and the next day he hired her. I thought to myself I would never get along with her, she was so happy-go-lucky, pretty, smart, silly, funny, and everyone loved her instantly. The day she was hired she needed a ride home from work, so reluctantly I offered. (Hey, I was jealous, not insensitive) That day changed my life, we talked the whole way back to her house while in my car and we were best friends from that moment on. I fell in love with her spirit, her kindness, her love for life and every living thing. She became my soul sister/kindred spirit/best friend. She never judged me for anything I said or did or how I acted, for whatever tacky outfit I was wearing while making her be seen with me in public, what loser I was dating. She just loved being my best friend. 2 years after I met her, she moved back to her hometown of Memphis. I missed her terribly, but eventually we stopped calling, writing, exchanging gossip. Then after 2 years I decided to call her. We picked up right where we left off. We vacationed together for what was the last time in August of 97. The last time I saw her was in Jan of 98 when she came to see me and brought her then 2 year old son. The following February in 98 she was in a car accident that nearly took her life. She sustained massive head injuries, crushed her right ankle and every bone in her foot, crushed her left wrist and all fingers, and her left knee was missing from her leg when the paramedics arrived. Upon arriving at the hospital 3 days after her accident, I burst into tears. This was not the person I knew or remembered seeing at my house a month before, laughing and playing with her son. Her prognosis was she would never walk, talk or EVER be the same. She wouldn't respond to any of the doctors, she wouldn't/couldn't open her eyes. She was in a coma. I forced tears back and went to her bedside and held her hand and started talking to her like nothing had changed. I told her her hospital gown was tacky, that we'd have to go shopping. I mentioned a few of the good looking doctors on the Trauma Unit Ward (where she was), caught her up on my mundane life, talked of our next vacation, told her about the man in my life, just regular girl talk, I knew she wouldn't want to be pitied, and nothing...she wouldn't open her eyes or acknowledge I was there. It killed me that she didn't even know who I was. I was dying inside to see her like that but I kept talking to her and by noon, the day after I had arrived, I told her she had the prettiest eyes I'd ever seen and that I wanted to see them again and she turned her head and opened her eyes for the first time since the accident and looked at and she squeezed my hand and started crying, without saying a word. Because she's never spoken more than 5 sentences since her accident and it's been 2 1/2 years. (The part of her brain she had to have removed controls speech). I've driven to Memphis every other weekend for over 2 years to be with her. The reason why is right after her accident a mutual friend of ours told me Catherine (my friend) had always thought of me as her guardian angel and that she knew we would always be best friends no matter what. Sure we had our fights, all friends do. Hell, she slept with my ex boyfriend 2 months after we broke up. But that never deterred me from knowing she and I were closer than sisters. We were just THAT close. Like 2 people put on the planet to make the other's world a better place. I still go to see her, and I don't cry anymore. She still can't walk/talk/feed herself/go to the bathroom without tubes, but she is still and always will be my best friend. It took me a long time to figure out why this happened to her, and I've never gotten the answer I wanted, but I DO know, that friendships matter. When boyfriends disappear, parents die, your car breaks down, you get married, whatever the case may be, your best friend will always be there. In spirit and in your heart. I try to be that person to her because I know my life is better because she is in it.

So for Heather and Wendy, my advice is that life changes constantly. Obviously you two are great friends. Always hang on to that. Nurture it and take care of it. While many of us have many acquaintances, few of us are lucky enough to have Catherine's and Heather's and Wendy's.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2000

OK, you made me cry again.

I've had many friendships in my life, but none like the one I share with Wendy. For two people who have nothing in common, we sure have been through a lot together, and we've put up with a lot of each other's shit. It takes a real, true friend to do what you do: Drive to another town to visit a friend in need like that. I know a lot of people who would pay lip service to visiting someone who was in a car accident and sustained such horrendous injuries. They'd go and visit a few times, to say that they did, but eventually they'd stop. I think it's proof that you're a marvellous person. Not everyone could stand to see their friend through such hard times.

Wendy is my best friend. More than that-- she is my sister. She has lived with my parents, she has lived with me. She slept in my bed with me during the Ice Storm in Montreal. She's seen me naked, I've seen her drunk. We've been through so much together that it's impossible to believe that we wouldn't be there for each other if something catastrophic happened to either one of us. We may live far apart right now, but that's a temporary thing, and we both know that. I feel for her the same way as you feel for your friend. I'd do anything in my power for her.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2000

Our favorite movie was Harlem Nights (don't ask why because I don't know) but whenever we talked on the phone and one of us was doing something stupid in our lives like dating a loser, hating our jobs or just something lame in general, we would quote Eddie Murphy from that movie and say "Shut up you fat bitch, don't make me shoot off your pinky toe". It was hysterical. Plus, whenever we got together we would rent that movie and laugh and laugh and laugh and quote and quote and laugh, like we had never seen the movie before.

Our other favorite was "Beaches"...I was Bette Midler and she was Barbara Hershey. She even bought me a silver jewelry box (of course I still have it) that plays "Wind Beneath My Wings". I think to myself now, how appropriate.

As you can see, I miss her...this is all I'm going to say about friends, and her.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2000

Heather, you do me an honor. In addition to Heather putting up with all my crap (and there's a lot), her parents have also been awsome. They've fed me, sheltered me, nursed me through hangovers (the Irish flu), lent me money, and let me call them crying at 1AM. And when all else failed, they financed my move toward Heather. I'm sure they were a little disappointed when I returned home, but on the upside, they must realize that Heather won't be far behind. Where one goes, the other will surely follow. That's what I keep telling myself, anyway.

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2000

Damnit, you all are making me cry.
I have one of those friends too. Her name is Terri.
I've known her for fifteen years, now - we met in preschool. I'm a part of her family, and she's a part of mine. She knows me better than I do, and better than anyone else does. We've laughed together, cried together, fought, made up, gotten high, complained about our love lives, and gone on goofy 2 AM trips to the IHOP.
She says I'm the middle sister in her family; I say she's the only sister I have.
We graduated from high school in May, and she just moved up to Orlando last Sunday. (I live in Tampa.) It's just an hour and a half away, but it feels like more than that.
She's already decided that I have to move up there. I'm doing one year of college here, then transferring to somewhere up there next summer.
Whoever it was on here that said "where one goes, the other will follow" is right, in this case. I'm making my plans already.

Animate.



-- Anonymous, June 20, 2000